Stephen Lawrence profile: the ambitious teenager with a fun-loving streak

As a 16-year-old, painting rap music stars and political icons onto T-shirts
for extra pocket money, Stephen Lawrence could never have imagined his own
face would one day be as instantly recognisable as his heroes'.

Bright and ambitious, he set his sights on becoming an architect at the age of seven, a dream he was still pursuing when he was murdered at the age of 18.

At Blackheath Bluecoat School in south London, which he attended from the age of 11, he showed a flair for art and maths and was studying for A-levels in design and technology, physics and English when he died.

In 1991 he spent a couple of weeks on work experience with Arthur Timothy, an architect in east London. Mr Timothy remembers him as a “diligent and very enthusiastic" teenager with “enormous potential".

But to his close circle of friends, he was a fun-loving joker with the same taste for pop music, celebrities and designer clothes as any British schoolboy.

Elvin Oduro, one of his best friends, recalls how they used to go on “missions” to discover other parts of London.

"We used to go up to Oxford Street on a Saturday, window-shopping, getting up to mischief, looking for girls … it was always fun.”

He also displayed an entrepreneurial streak, setting up a business with Elvin designing and selling T-shirts and painting famous faces from rap musicians to political figures such as Malcolm X onto baseball caps and jackets.

The pair once landed some tickets to a live recording of the Channel 4 youth show The Word in which some of their musical heroes were appearing.

After the show they tracked down the American rapper Flavor Flav on set and presented him with a boiler suit emblazoned with a hand-painted rendition of his own face.

He greeted them with two “high fives” and thanked them for the unusual gift.

Stephen once made his own, brief, foray into the world of celebrity – landing a part as an extra in the film For Queen and Country, starring Denzel Washington.

Tall and athletic, he also excelled on the running track, and competed for local Cambridge Harriers athletics club.

“It was great having a big brother,” Stuart Lawrence, two years Stephen’s junior, later remembered.

“No one messed with me, Stephen was tall and cool and had loads of friends.”

Georgina, who was just 11 when her brother was murdered, remembers the how he would pick her up at her school gates when their mother was busy.

“He was always there, he never forgot,” she later said.

The Revd David Cruise, the former minister at Trinity Methodist Church, where the family worshipped, remembers his uncanny ability to charm himself out of trouble.

“Stephen was no goody-goody, he had his rebellious streak,” he later explained.

"Mrs Lawrence asked me to talk sense into him …. when I tried he just smiled his cheeky, knowing grin.”

On the night of April 22 1993, serious matters were far from Stephen Lawrence’s mind as he headed home after a night out with friends.

The last memory Leon Thompson, who saw him earlier in the evening, has of Stephen is of him standing at a bus stop recounting how he had been chatting up a new girl and was looking forward to their first date together.

“He was going to go out that Saturday and meet her, and he was really happy about it,” he later said.